First Look: Robert Downey Jr. As SHERLOCK HOLMES

Director Guy Ritchie’s new, revisionist take on the classic detective Sherlock Homes recently began shooting on location in London, and Just Jared has already managed to land some photos of star Robert Downey Jr. in costume as Holmes. We’ve picked out three of the best and posted them below. You can check out the rest via the link above.

Some of the commentators at Just Jared seem thrown by the fact that Downey’s Holmes isn’t in the cloak and deer-stalker cap made famous by Basil Rathbone in the old 1930s and `40s Sherlock Holmes films. They seem to think that Downey looks more like he is working on a sequel to his 1992 biopic Chaplin. But those familiar with the Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle will tell you that Holmes has on occasion gone undercover, putting on disguises to travel through the seamier parts of Victotian-era London in order to gain needed information. This looks like what is going on here. As to the Chaplin-esque bowler hat he is wearing, this was a very common hat for the time period. The only time that Holmes would wear a deer-stalker cap would be if he were out in the country, chasing hounds across mist-enshrouded moors.

A film fan since he first saw that Rebel Blockade Runner fleeing the massive Imperial Star Destroyer at the tender age of 8 and a veteran freelance journalist with twenty years experience writing about film and pop culture.

Indeed, these pictures are of Holmes in one of his disguises! If I might be so bold to say, I believe this look is characteristic of Holmes as a ‘drunken-looking groom’ from Doyle’s first story to appear in the Strand – A Scandal in Bohemia. In two separate pictures drawn by Sidney Paget to accompany the story when it was published, Holmes is seen with the bowler hat on. And furthermore, the clothes we now see Downey Jr. in are almost the same as what Paget had drawn. And please forgive me if I spoil anything, but this disguise was… Read more »